[charleseppley]

My new article on sonic artist Liz Phillips is out in a special issue of Public Art Dialogue on gender and public art. I discuss the public sound installation Windspun in relation to the postwar urban gardening movement in New York amidst concurrent revitalization and disinvestment campaigns.  

[charleseppley]

I have a few objects in this exhibition celebrating seven years of the School for Poetic Computation (SFPC). Archival materials from the Cybernetics Conference and several Avant.org projects are included! 

[charleseppley]

You can read my introduction to Soundsites: Experiments in Sound & Place, a special issue of Public Art Dialogue, at this link. The issue features several writings, articles, artist projects, etc. that examine how sound and site interact to create meaning (i.e., places) within public space. 

[charleseppley]

On Saturday Dec 8, 3-6 PM, I have co-organized an afternoon program on the personal and social narratives of electronic system design, featuring the work of three artists: Anastasia Clarke, Bonnie Jones, and Victoria Shen. The event, You Do It Yourself, is hosted at School for Poetic Computation in the historic Westbeth artists building in Lower Manhattan, where David Tudor and Merce Cunningham once worked, and is co-organized with Ezra Teboul. More information and tickets here: http://avant.org/event/doyou/

[charleseppley]

I am co-editing a forthcoming special issue of Public Art Dialogue (with Asa Stjerna) on the topic of sonic public art. The issue, Soundsites: Experiments in Sound and Place, will be published in Spring 2019. The collection features articles on public sound sculpture (pictured above, Harry Bertoia in Chicago), indigenous sound art/listening practices, global sonic art cultures, and corporate ideologies of new music, among others. More soon! 

[charleseppley]

I am happy to announce that I have been invited to the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science as a 2018 Visiting Scholar. In this position, I will continue my research on Neuhaus’s exploration of electronic circuits, focusing on his time spent in Berlin, hometown of MPIWG, researching subaquatic acoustics and electroacoustic sound installation. I will be conducting research within the Epistemes of Modern Acoustics Research Group, which has been producing extremely interesting work. I am honored to be a part of this project. 

I also will be co-editing a special issue of the journal Public Art Dialogue, with Asa Stjerna, on the topic of sonic public art. The CFP can be found at the Public Art Dialogue website.

[charleseppley]

I am happy to publicly share links to my two journal articles for Parallax and Leonardo Music Journal, which are now available online: 

“Beyond Cage: On Sonic Art History & Historiography,” Parallax, Volume 23, Issue 3: Sounding/Thinking, Guest Edited by James Lavender (July 2017)

“Times Square: Strategies & Contingencies of Preserving Sonic Art,” Leonardo Music Jouranl, Volume 27, History and Memory (Dec 2017)

[charleseppley]

I am pleased to publicly announce that, in addition to successfully defending my dissertation, I have three forthcoming peer-reviewed projects.

I have two articles being published in Leonardo Music Journal and Parallax. The first article, “Times Square: Strategies and Contingencies of Preserving Sonic Art” (LMJ 27), explores the artistic, technical, and cultural histories of Max Neuhaus’s iconic sound installation Times Square (1977-1992; 2002-present). The article overviews the production of the piece and its various iterations over four decades, focusing on its changing environment, preservation strategies, and conservation problems. The second article, “Beyond Cage: Sonic Art History and Historiography” (Parallax 23, Issue 3), examines the art historical legacy of the experimental music composer John Cage and suggests an additional source: the composer Henry Cowell, who taught Cage and Fluxus artist Dick Higgins. The article explores the relationship between Cage, Cowell, and Higgins to present a materialist, rather than conceptualist, model of sonic art history.

I will also be co-editing an issue of the Public Art Dialogue journal with Åsa Stjerna. The issue, titled Soundsites: Experiments in Sound and Place, will explore the concept of sonic public art, featuring critical essays and artist writings. CFP forthcoming.

[charleseppley]

I have been working on several academic and curatorial projects this summer. Firstly, I am very grateful to have worked with artist Christine Sun Kim on her new sound walk (LISTEN) (2016), which was commissioned by Avant.org and premiered on October 30-31. The piece was a 50th anniversary adaptation of Max Neuhaus’s original LISTEN (1966). Each piece entailed leading a group of listeners, both hearing and non-hearing, around NYC’s Lower East Side. Kim’s tour was given in ASL and spoken English, giving attention to hearing in the 21st century as the cultures, meanings, and technologies of listening have expanded. Documentation forthcoming.

Additionally, the composer Seth Cluett will perform a new piece, Inward-Turning Histories (2015-16), in celebration of Avant.org’s commission of an artist edition musical score and custom audio software package. The site-specific musical performance will take place on Nov. 15 at the newly founded Current Museum of Digital Art in Lower Manhattan. My own work, Museum Displacement: The Museum of Modern Art (5:00-5:30pm, February 14, 2014) (2016), is installed in the space. The piece amplifies a field recording of MoMA’s closing hours through the Current’s door frame and ceiling duct. 

Academically, I will be speaking at the upcoming CAA 2017 conference on the sonic history of the MoMA sculpture garden, 1960-1988. The paper will consider how the museum has dealt with noise in and outside of its architectural, curatorial, ideological visions. I am also prepping two articles and an edited journal issue for publication. Back to work! 

[charleseppley]

My interview with pioneering sound installation artist Liz Phillips is now online, as is documentation from the Circuit Scores program in which she participated, along with Julie Martin (Dir., Experiments in Art & Technology), Mats Lindstrom (Dir., EMS Stockholm), and Composers Inside Electronics. In the interview, we discuss her interest in electronics, creative circuitry, collaborations with Alison Knowles and Yoshi Wada, and the current legacy of American masculine electronics culture. 

[charleseppley]

I’ve co-curated a performance program of electronic circuit-based music with Wesleyan University and AVANT.org. The event, Circuit Scores: Electronics After David Tudor, features historical and contemporary works related to the live electronics of Tudor and his crowd, ca. 1970-1980. The event is on March 27, 3PM, and held at the School for Poetic Computation in the old Bell Labs research facility in Manhattan. 

Circuit Scores is affiliated an academic conference on Tudor at Wesleyan University, held over March 25-26, where I’ll also present a paper on Neuhaus and his relation to Tudor and Experiments in Art & Technology.

[charleseppley]

Speaking at the Columbia Music Scholarship Conference (Feb 27 2016). Slides shown include image/detail of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s first commercial release of “Zyklus” (1959) on vinyl via the WERGO label in 1970. The record has two different versions of the composition by Neuhaus & Christoph Caskel. 

[charleseppley]

The Electronic Circuit as Post-Musical Score (CMSC 2016)

I’m happy to present at the 2016 Columbia Music Scholarship Conference, held at Columbia University on Feb. 27. I’ll be talking about Max Neuhaus, Liz Phillips, and David Tudor regarding their use of electronic circuity as a “post-musical” practice. Lots of great topics included in the conference! 

Paper title: “Dissonant Resonance: Max Neuhaus and the Electronic Circuit as Post-Musical Score” http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cmsc/schedule/

[charleseppley]

From Minimalism into Algorithm, an ambitious program at the Kitchen unfolding over the 2015-16 season, considers the roles of seriality, speculation and networked communication in art from the 1960s to the present. A slate of performances and one exhibition unfolding in three parts consider the past half-century of art through this algorithmic lens. A.i.A. spoke to Tim Griffin, the Kitchen's executive director, about the nonprofit's history of showing new-media work, its position as a dialogue generator, the role of corporate aesthetics in this exhibition, and more.

I recently spoke with Tim Griffin, director of The Kitchen, about their exhibition on the legacy of algorithmic speculation in Minimalism and post-Minimal art-making in subsequent decades. We talk about Laurie Spiegel, Robert Ashley, Mary Lucier, Tony Conrad, etc. Read more at Art in America.

[charleseppley]

Drone has always been a subterranean genre. However, its roots in Fluxus, in the work of composers like Yoshi Wada and his mentor La Monte Young, suggest that drone's rich connections to postwar art have been overlooked, especially in the realms of sculpture, performance and dance.

My second piece for Art in America considers drone composer Yoshi Wada and the influence of music on downtown conceptual art. 

[charleseppley]

In September we at AVANT.org organized a performance at the ALLGOLD MoMA PS1 Print Shop by artists Taeyoon Choi & E Roon Kang titled “In Search of Personalized Time.” The participatory piece coincided with the 2015 Printed Matter Art Book Fair, and included a workshop on subjective time and handmade computing. Above you can see the first group of “time travelers” entering the fair with artist-made time keeping devices. http://avant.org/media/isopt-info

[charleseppley]

I am pleased to announce (weeks after the fact) that my review of Dia’s new Dream House installation by La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and Jung Hee Choi is published in Art in America (September, 2015): 

http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/magazine/

The article draws on both New York versions of the piece, and offers some thoughts on the problems with preserving/conserving durational art.